I recently had a revelation. For parents who are struggling trying to see their daughter in the person they knew as their "son"- or vice versa-maybe this will help.
When DJ first came out, I constantly searched JD for signs of DJ. At first, all I could see was JD and I couldn't see DJ. I would look at JD and have to remind myself that he, damn it, SHE, was now DJ and then I would have to remind myself to say "she" instead of "he" and to THINK it, as well.
It's been less than two short years and for a very long time now, I haven't been able to "see" JD anymore in DJ. It's not because her appearance has changed, although, certainly it has. It's more that my perspective has changed.
I tell my students all the time that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to pre-hospital emergency medicine. But I am a hard worker and I don't give up on wanting to understand medical concepts. You don't have to be "gifted" to succeed, you just have to be willing to work hard and to not give up.
This is true also if you are a parent who is struggling to accept your child's uniqueness, whatever it is. You don't have to be a gifted, superparent; you just have to be committed to wanting to accept your child. You have to be willing to work hard and to not give up.
It's like reading EKGs-those electrical tracings that are generated by your heart and can be seen on a screen. The first 100 times (or more) a new medic looks at them, they don't make sense. It doesn't matter what a person tells you about what you're looking at-it just doesn't sink in. The "foreign-ness" of it still looks foreign. The trick is to keep looking at the EKG strips over and over, and over, and over, and over....you get the idea.
At first, the simple ones sink in slowly, then the ones that are a little more challenging start to make sense. You see slight progress but it still seems like you'll never get comfortable with it. Then you just decide to forget about comfort, you're in it for the long haul no matter what, so you just keep plugging away because you're so tired from trying and so discouraged at your lack of progress that you don't even want to consider the possibility of failure because it makes you feel even worse.
Then one day, you look at those previously foreign EKG tracings and you start to forget how hard it was to understand. You're not sure when it happened exactly, but now when you look at them, you can barely remember being confused by them. Somewhere along the line, it "clicked."
I don't know when it clicked for me, but I DO know that if I try to remember JD, it's only remembering that I can accomplish because I cannot see JD in DJ anymore. I see a resemblance the way I see that Goodwrench and DJ are obviously related....and that's about it. So my point is this-acceptance of your kid will not be just merely tolerance. It will be "seeing" your child for who she, or he, truly is.
When DJ first came out, I constantly searched JD for signs of DJ. At first, all I could see was JD and I couldn't see DJ. I would look at JD and have to remind myself that he, damn it, SHE, was now DJ and then I would have to remind myself to say "she" instead of "he" and to THINK it, as well.
It's been less than two short years and for a very long time now, I haven't been able to "see" JD anymore in DJ. It's not because her appearance has changed, although, certainly it has. It's more that my perspective has changed.
I tell my students all the time that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to pre-hospital emergency medicine. But I am a hard worker and I don't give up on wanting to understand medical concepts. You don't have to be "gifted" to succeed, you just have to be willing to work hard and to not give up.
This is true also if you are a parent who is struggling to accept your child's uniqueness, whatever it is. You don't have to be a gifted, superparent; you just have to be committed to wanting to accept your child. You have to be willing to work hard and to not give up.
It's like reading EKGs-those electrical tracings that are generated by your heart and can be seen on a screen. The first 100 times (or more) a new medic looks at them, they don't make sense. It doesn't matter what a person tells you about what you're looking at-it just doesn't sink in. The "foreign-ness" of it still looks foreign. The trick is to keep looking at the EKG strips over and over, and over, and over, and over....you get the idea.
At first, the simple ones sink in slowly, then the ones that are a little more challenging start to make sense. You see slight progress but it still seems like you'll never get comfortable with it. Then you just decide to forget about comfort, you're in it for the long haul no matter what, so you just keep plugging away because you're so tired from trying and so discouraged at your lack of progress that you don't even want to consider the possibility of failure because it makes you feel even worse.
Then one day, you look at those previously foreign EKG tracings and you start to forget how hard it was to understand. You're not sure when it happened exactly, but now when you look at them, you can barely remember being confused by them. Somewhere along the line, it "clicked."
I don't know when it clicked for me, but I DO know that if I try to remember JD, it's only remembering that I can accomplish because I cannot see JD in DJ anymore. I see a resemblance the way I see that Goodwrench and DJ are obviously related....and that's about it. So my point is this-acceptance of your kid will not be just merely tolerance. It will be "seeing" your child for who she, or he, truly is.
This reminds of when we shared this with our kids who were 5 and 7 I guess??, they both immediately changed pronouns and never seemed to have to think about it. I love how simple life is to children. If only we could take more of that into adulthood with us...
ReplyDeleteBeautifully articulated. For me, it started like a bit of lenticular animation ... tilt my perception one way and I could see her, tilt back and I could still see him. After a while, the tilting/squinting didn't work anymore and that was ok.
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